


Song Like Sunlight

by MostlyAnon



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Bodyguard, F/M, In my head The Boxer's coat is a main character, Music, Paper Boats, Pre-Relationship, Protectiveness, Red - Freeform, Red/Subject - Freeform, Red/Transistor - Freeform, Security work, Singing, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyAnon/pseuds/MostlyAnon
Summary: He’s sat through a hundred interviews, all the same, and every answer is automatic as he covertly examines the bright, stylized posters hung around the room, each one highlighting the same red-haired woman. He wonders if she is supposed to look so angry and decides that she probably isn’t.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time he hears her sing, its the background noise in a cramped elevator ride up to yet another job interview. He has the inane thought that a record company should have better elevator music, but mostly his mind is a blank smear. Another job interview— too smart to be a bodyguard and without the credentials to oversee security, his life is an endless swirl of entrance and exit interviews. He can’t remember if this is the thirteenth of the year or the fourteenth. He decides he should start keeping track as the elevator doors open and the music fades away.

He’s sat through a hundred interviews, all the same, and every answer is automatic as he covertly examines the bright, stylized posters hung around the room, each one highlighting the same red-haired woman. He wonders if she is supposed to look so angry and decides that she probably isn’t. 

The second part of the interview. A conference room usually used for something else, the lingering fog of old coffee, and seven other candidates in dark suits. They’re all muscle and ferocious in a quiet, subtle sort of way, their expressions completely blank. It takes him a second look to pick the women from the men. He scrubs a hand over his face and when he drops it, there is a woman before him, her head tilted back to look at him, her hair a riot of fire and her eyes narrowed in feline consideration. 

He is big. He is good looking enough to be called good looking, but this woman is way beyond his league. They don’t even play the same sport. In this crowd, he shouldn’t stand out and he doesn’t know what she sees when she looks at him, but her voice sounds like the velvet rasp of satin stockings when she points him out to the producer and thanks the others for coming in.

Lucky job number fourteen, he decides.

——

The job is higher profile than his previous jobs, so it follows that the scenery is significantly better. He starts on evening shifts, off tour. It’s his job to wait with her in a safe-room while the teams clear her apartment, absently listening to more of that terrible the canned music being piped in from somewhere.

A week in, Red decided to ignore his presence in the most provocative way. His gaze strays as she deliberately pushes back a tangle of that hair, tilts her head down to note something on her tablet, showcasing the pale, smooth arc of her neck and shoulder. He’s absorbed by one of her tour posters when her lashes flick up and over to see if he noticed her play. He doesn’t smile at the frown reflected in the poster’s frame.

——

She reveals too much leg when she flops down into the chair across from him, bare legs falling over the arm on one side and damp hair cascading down the other. There’s a beer in her hand and if he hadn’t checked the icer himself, he’d be surprised by it. He keeps having these ideas about her skin and a bottle of champagne.

“Are you even paying attention?” she asks and her voice is a tangible thing on his skin, the husk of it dragging his eyes from the tablet he’d been perusing.

“To you?” he asks, because it’s safer to be sure.

“To anything!” She gestures with the beer. “All you do is read. Or loom. Shouldn’t you be guarding me?”

“How?” he asks, curious to see what she thinks his job entails. No one ever gets it right, not unless they’ve worked security, too, but it only took him a day to realize she was easily three times as smart as anyone thought she was.

Her brow furrows as she thinks, obviously miffed that she hadn’t anticipated his question. He gives her a minute to fume, then takes pity on her, despite how she is wielding her legs like weapons in his own personal apocalypse.

“Everything is either anticipation or reaction,” he tells her, putting down the tablet and standing up to stretch. His jacket is by the door, but his gun is snug under his arm, the back up piece a familiar irritant in his boot. “This apartment and all surrounding areas of possible approach were cleared by your security team earlier, and then again by me when you were showering. Routes of approach are currently being guarded by three man teams.” He taps a finger next to his ear and the communicator flares to life before fading. “I’m in charge of getting in the way if a threat gets by those defenses and maintaining your personal safety. Reactionary. Statistically, this is the least dangerous time of your day, which is why I’m the one standing here. The lowest risk gig goes to the newest guy.” 

Her head has fallen back so she can look up at him, bottle dangling forgotten in her fingers. He chances looking at her eyes and is drawn in to the fury and fire of them, the siren depths that try to snare him and drag him down.

Her lips turn up just slightly, at the corners and she licks a drop of liquid of her bottom lip. “I didn’t realize there was a brain under all that brawn.”

It isn’t just willpower that makes him smile a lopsided smile, step back from her. It’s the same urge that made him want to pull on Cindy’s pigtails back in the fourth grade. Red’s reaction is much more satisfying.

“I wasn’t hired for my looks,” he drawls, and wanders over to the window.

——


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really chapters, no. Just putting it up, putting it up as I write it, write it in bits and pieces.

At her request, he’s made part of the primary team. He hasn’t really been there long enough to justify it, but he doesn’t mind the extra hours. He never does find out how he passed the security background check. Over the years, he’s made it a hobby to stay off grids and under radars; most people would have a hard time finding out his full name, much less any information worth knowing. Red isn’t spoiled the way some of his past clients were, but he eventually comes to understand that the lady has her way, in the inevitable way of the sun setting.

Overall, she’s a surprisingly easy body to guard, (not like that, though it isn’t _not_ not like that, either, if he’s honest.) Off tour, she mostly keeps her own company. He doesn’t mind her silence and even likes the lack of small talk. Shortly after he joins primary, Red finds him idly flipping through one of her antique books. She tries to bait him by asking him about what he’s ‘read,’ her voice syrupy with the certainty that he’s out of his depth. Like the lack of small talk, he is unconcerned by her attempts to sharpen her claws on him, but this time he answers honestly. He’s never been one for the existentialists, preferring the Greek hedonistic views overall. 

His response surprises her, but _hers_ surprises him; she brushes past him and reaches for a different book higher on the shelf, her smile a crooked, cheshire thing as she offers it over. 

“I should have figured,” she says as he takes the book, leaving him to inhale the lingering scent of her. A few days later, she coaxes him into sitting with her and they end up debating philosophy over a truly delicious seafood flatbread. She stares at him in shock when he rattles off a main point in the original Greek.

“Aren’t you supposed to be just a piece of meat?” she asks, throwing a shrimp at him in mock-outrage. He catches it in his mouth and she laughs, the lilting ribbons of her amusement tangling around him like a tangible thing. 

He falls in love with her a thousand times, endlessly, but he is almost certain that’s the first time.

——

She doesn’t sing in the shower and he’s been the primary lead on her personal security detail for a month before he actually hears her sing. Not during the shower, no, but after, while she goes through whatever rituals it is a woman does to create herself, she sings a nonsensical, sultry song about fish swimming in the harbor. 

He is leaning against the door to her bathroom, passing the time until she is ready, and lifts his head as her voice catches him, tangling his thoughts. She sings about little fishes in a voice like sunlight on the harbor in the late afternoon, warm and liquid. Hers is the voice of a legendary siren, the sort that would tempt men to their doom and drown them in the depths of their own bliss. He is completely still, unable to breathe, so sure that any movement will shatter the song. 

The acoustics in her bathroom are astounding, he manages to think.

He almost falls on top of her when she opens the door. Quick reflexes and a lifetime of relying upon them saves them both from what, he is able to admit, would have been an embarrassing fall. The humid rush of air surrounds him with her scent and she looks up at him with brows furrowed in confused inquiry.

“Hey,” he says, because its the first thing he can think of. “So you can really sing, huh?”

Damp lashes flick as her eyes roll and she pushes past him, leaving him with a hand on the doorframe and her voice lingering in his ear.


	3. Chapter 3

He’s never been much for sleeping, so he’s awake when his communicator begins shrieking the alarm for Red’s home security. A few weeks in, he’d keyed a copy-cat program into her system and forgotten to mention it to anyone. (He reasons that there might actually exist a secret that two people have kept, but in all his years he’s never heard one.) He wipes sweat off his brow as he checks the code, already heading for his bike.

There is no alarm going off at Red’s pricey Highrise home, no police or obvious issues. He wasn’t expecting any; the code was the one used when medical help is needed. He paused to sweep the place with a practiced eye as he keys open her door. For a moment, he is in the doorway, between the inside’s light and the night’s dark, looking up at the shadows above.

“Red?” he calls, shutting the door behind him and moving deeper into her place. His footsteps are silent; he can move lightly for a large man. (Float like butterfly, sting like a… sonovabitch? His boxing coach used to yell something like that at him.) 

He ignores the three security guards standing in a huddle on the far side of her foyer, near the door to Red’s bedroom. The woman, (Ceila, he thinks, nine months on the primary team, ran a detail for Sybil Reisz before that,) holds up a hand to placate or detain him, but very little can slow him down when he wants to move. (Bee. Sting like a bee. That was it. That would have bothered him all night.) He slides past her and brings the heel of his hand down sharply on the elbow of one of the men, (Caesar, two years with Red’s team, worked his way up to primary, usually took night shifts,) the guy reached out to grab him, thinking this would do anything to hinder him. Caesar yelps in pain, holding what is probably a fractured elbow. Luckily, he thinks absently, they’d already called for medical help. 

He knocks lightly on the door and watches the final member of the trio to see if he wants to try anything. (Rodric, barely three months in, but they’d worked a few jobs together in the past and he’s generally been solid as a rock.) Rodric doesn’t go to help Caesar, but he doesn’t do anything else, either.

The door opens to reveal Red, her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes sharp in the way of cornered wild creatures. He looks down at her, taking in the tension, the way her nails bite into her skin, the utter lack of an obvious physical ailment, all the while, her gaze darts past him, at him, around the room behind him, back to him again.

“Hi,” he says, voice soft, head dipped slightly so he can keep her gaze.

“Hey,” she says, her voice the only thing betraying her fear. There’s a vicious, relentless thing inside her. There’s no flight, in Red. She’s not the type to run.

“You want to tell me what’s up?” he asks, letting it be a genuine question; if she doesn’t want to tell him, he’ll— no, he won’t leave, but he will go away and find whatever it is that’s made her feel this way. He’ll make it regret every choice its ever made.

She looks at the trio behind him, mute.

He barely touches a finger to her chin, his hands still wrapped from the bag work the alarm had interrupted. (It was early enough that there isn’t any blood; bad nights, bad nights he beats the bag until it bleeds. Until he bleeds.) The touch is just enough to draw her focus back to him.

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t worry about them. They’re nobody. Whatever this is, we can handle it, you and me. Just tell me what’s going on.”

What’s going on is that Red’s felt jumpy all day, like someone is watching her, and it’s only gotten worse as time passed. What’s going on is that she’s told the trio behind him that she felt this way, even after they secured and cleared her place, even after they searched the nearby buildings, and she heard them when they called for a doctor to evaluate her mental state and possibly sedate her. What’s going on is she heard them talking, talking about her and how she is a pain when he’s not working. What’s going on is that she isn’t sure why he’s here, but she isn’t making this up and that’s when he stops her.

“I believe you,” he says and shrugs out of his jacket. It’s a heavy monster of a thing, meant to keep his skin on him and not the road, if he wipes out on his bike. To say it dwarfs her is to understate the way it settles around her shoulders, wraps her in borrowed armor and gives her a piece of sanctuary. He sends Ceila to take Caesar to a doctor and has Rodric cancel the call they’d put in for medical help and replace it with a call to the authorities. 

Red stands in the door of her bedroom, watching as he methodically takes it apart, and by the time the police arrive, he’s found three tiny cameras and one microphone.

She’s curled up in his coat when he’s finally finished with the police. Her place has been cleared, but he has a call in to an old friend who owes him a few and is going to double check to make sure nothing was missed. No way his friend misses anything, but if she wants, he can sweep the entire place himself, but maybe after they get some breakfast. The police are investigating her cleaning service, turns out one of the maids has been doing quite a bit of shopping lately, in the type of places that maids can’t usually afford. It’s a detail that’s slipped by him, infuriating, but he lets the irritation drift away in the wake of her tired, grateful smile.

“How’d you know to come?” she asks, unfurling from her nest and rising like a phoenix to stretch. She’s put her arms through the sleeves of the coat and they fall to reveal only the tips of her fingers as she reaches up. He likes the look of it on her. He likes-

He’s better off not following that train of thought. Tracks like that usually have oncoming trains and he’s smart enough not to end up a red smear on the rails.

He smiles back at her, lopsided and reflective, like the water in the dawn. “I will always find you,” he says. Later, he can’t breathe, watching her stand in front of a writhing, worshipful crowd, singing his words, like they’d always been the heart of a love song.


	4. Chapter 4

She doesn’t sleep a solid hour the week after he answered the midnight alarm. She hides it well, twisting inward on herself like a flower deprived the sun, but things have changed, changed for her and changed for him. He is never off shift, never far from her side but careful to give her the impression of space. He’s had to go longer with less sleep more often than she has; he’s used to it and grabs naps when he has to, never when she’s supposed to be asleep. They are starting in on a weekend, both of them barely keeping their heads above water when he makes a decision to teach her to swim.

“Hey,” he says, leaning against the door to her room. Her head jerks, eyes wide for the bare fraction of a second it takes her to see him. Even with dark circles under her eyes, she is by far the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in person. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

She cocks her head slightly, but nods and rises, following him without question outside. They ride the gondola down to his bike, out of place on the upscale street, and he takes his coat off the seat to drape it around her shoulders.

She stirs, threading her arms through the sleeves as he zips it up. “Where are we going?” she asks, blinking as he plops the helmet onto her head and fiddles with the strap to adjust it.

“You’ll see,” he tells her, and it’s something that she climbs onto the bike behind him without further questions, her arms settling around his chest as he guns the engine. The road is mostly empty, but he resists the urge to let the bike really fly; he’s too tired and she’s too precious to risk, but someday, he decides, he’ll take her out and show her what it feels like to chase the wind. He thinks she’s the type to enjoy it.

His place could fit into her bedroom, even if he includes the alley he usually parks the bike in. She looks around the spartan, open room thoughtfully, holding the helmet in her hands like she’s forgotten she has it. He glances around, but the place is what it always is, except for the dust.

He remembers what he’d been doing the last time he was home and grins at her, waving a hand at the stereo in the corner. It starts up where it had left off and her voice fills his small space until he waves again to lower the volume.

She smirks up at him. “I knew you had good taste,” she says, setting the helmet on the only chair he owns.

“Only the best,” he agrees. “Hold out your hands for me, will you? Like this.” He shows her, then wraps her slender hands with thick tape. She watches him as if learning to master a great art. (He would argue there is an art to it, but he’d probably lose.)

When he’s done, she holds her hands up and glances at the heavy bag that dominates one corner of the room. She’s not dumb, his girl Red. 

He turns her to the bag, holding her shoulders as he adjusts her stance with gentle insistence. “You’re a fighter, you know that, Red? Should’a taught you how to box before now. Might have, but then you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

He shows her how to make a fist, lashes out at the bag to demonstrate, then again more slowly, so she can see how he shifts his weight, how he telegraphs what movements he’s making. He’s never had a student and learned most of his lessons the hard way, but he figures they can refine her form after she has the basics.

She’s exhausted until the first time her fist really connects with the bag. On a good day, warmed up and focused, he can make the bag swing, but he’s never been as elated as she is when she makes it sway slightly. It is an hour before her body gives out on her, before he stops her to make sure she hasn’t done any damage to her hands. 

She slumps against him on his futon, as he carefully unwraps her hands and checks them, a sweaty, triumphant, exhausted mess. She’s fast asleep by the time he’s finished and he can’t bring himself to wake her, or move somewhere less intimate. Instead, he rests his head back, settling an arm around her delicate shoulders. She curls into the side of him like he was created solely for that purpose and that’s his last thought before sleep mugs him like a back alley thug.

——

Her first thought upon waking has to do with music and rhythmic, steady beats. When she sits up, his jacket falls from her shoulders and pools around her hips; she is unnoticed by the large man in the corner of the small room. She is fairly certain it is the first time he has been distracted enough not to be aware of her every movement. She doesn’t mind being overlooked, it lets her look her fill.

He is working the bag over with a precise, methodical dedication; each hit lands like high note before a packed house. He’d stripped off his shirt at some point, she notes, drawing her legs up to prop her chin on her knees. Her hands ache in a pleasant, distant way. 

He is a big man, but there is nothing excess on him. Muscles cord, bunch, flow with every movement. The light from the windows is muted; early morning or late afternoon. It plays across the sweat sheening his skin and reveals a multitude of scars. She is almost certain there are two bullet holes on his shoulder, or they look like what she thinks a bullet wound would look like. Sharp slices on his lower back, a thin, trailing burn mark that wraps around his torso. 

“You’re humming, you know?” he asks, without missing a beat. She thinks he is showing off when he uses the momentum to spin into a high kick that makes the bag rock violently. He meets her eyes and she knows he was showing off, for her. 

And she had been humming. Her lips curl up as she stretches, unfurling from the futon and padding over to him. “You gave me a beat that was hard to resist.”

“I live to serve,” he tells her, snagging his shirt and wiping his face with it. “Did you sleep—“

She’s fairly sure she knows how his question ends, but even if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have cared to wait to hear it. She has to stand on tiptoe and even then, he is too tall. She braces a hand against his chest and reaches up with the other, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging his head down.

He has time to rasp a warning “Red,” before her lips touch his and he is utterly still for the first time, as if he’s worried he’ll spook her by moving. She rolls her eyes and bites his bottom lip, hard, and he jerks his head back in surprise. “Hey! Ow!” He frowns, then looks at her. “Wait. You—“

She’s already dropped back down and released him, putting a switch in her hips as she retrieves his coat. “Have a recording session to prepare for,” she finishes for him, slinging the coat over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

He stands in his apartment a beat more, then spreads his hands in supplication. “Seriously? You’re just going to set me up with a line like that?” he asks the empty apartment, then grabs a clean shirt and follows her out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line is "Are you coming or just breathing hard." In case you didn't hear that joke in high school. ^_^


	5. Chapter 5

“Come on,” she says, trying to drag him forward by the hand, both of hers wrapped around his wrist. She’d have more luck trying to move the sun. Her laughter is a song itself and makes him drag his feet, makes him want to do whatever he has to so she’ll laugh again.

“Where to?” he asks, looking over his shoulder, ostensively glancing towards her recording studio’s headquarters. “You have a rehearsal soon.”

“I _know_ ,” she says, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “That’s why you need to _come on._ ”

He lets her drag him to the docks, only sidetracking once in order to spin her in close and then under his arm. Her skirts brush against his legs as she twirls, but she is undaunted by his attempt and determined to finish this quest.

“There,” she proclaims, as pleased as a kitten with a bug, flourishing a hand at the boat tethered to the dock. It’s so sleek it looks like its floating on the air above the waves, practically humming with speed.

“You bought a boat?” he asks, delighted at the idea. He can already see her hair streaming behind her as she skips waves. “That’s _great._ You’ll—“

“I bought _you_ a boat,” she clarifies and he spots part of the name painted along the side: The Boxer.

“Really love the-you-“ he’s almost completely through the thought before he processes what she said. He stares at her in shock, long enough that she begins to fidget nervously. 

“You said you liked to go out on the water,” she says, looking over her shoulder at the boat. “And since you don’t get much time off, I thought you could use the pier here and—“

“You bought a pier, too?” he asks.  
“Well, where else are you going to keep the boat?” she counters, defensive, as if he’s the one who’s done something absurdly, amazingly thoughtful. “If you don’t like it, I’m sure the crew can use it for something or…”

He pulls her in to his arms by the grip she still has on his hand, staring over the top of her head at the- his- new boat. The water makes it sway and he buries his face in her sunlit hair, laughing silently at the twist of fortune that’s thrown her into his life. 

“You’re amazing, you know that?” he asks her, as her fingertips curl in the small of his back, her cheek presses against his chest. “Just— you’re,” he’s not great with words and they fail him utterly here, lost for a way to describe her. 

“I know,” she says, smugly, but there’s a warmth beneath it. She pulls away and looks up at him, the tilt of her chin demanding. “So? Are you going to take me out on it or not?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at the boat. “You said you wanted to.”

“I did,” he agrees, following her gaze. “Yeah, I did.” She is caught off guard when he scoops her up, carrying her nimbly down the pier and into the boat.

He’d been right. The sunlight and the wind comb her hair into a blazing fury, her laughter whips away as they skip waves and speed through the bay. She does not make it back to land in time for her rehearsal; she sets about distracting him when he notes the time and begins to turn them back towards the Empty Set. 

He is hopeless against her idea of sabotage. The boat is left to idle in the middle of the mirror-like water as he lingers, savoring the taste of sunset on her skin. Yon-Dale’s masterpieces are nothing compared to their reflection painted against the canvas of Red’s body. Bold, she pins him to the bottom of the boat using a move he’d taught her himself, making him laugh, then making his laugh go breathless at the sight of her rising gloriously above him, clothed only in the fading sunlight and dusky shadows.

She is exquisite, a sublime creature of golden grace, and too good for him by far. He hoards whatever she offers him, tries to repay in kind, but the balance sheet will never be fair, he knows. In the early starlight, he sees a future in her, sees a future he wants for the first time in as long as he can remember. 

——

Seaside bar is barely a building; most of it is an overgrown terrace, the vines climbing the trestles hang heavy with fragrant blooms. The sounds of the crowd and karaoke spill into the night, down to the water. It has a dockside entrance via one of the canals, which makes it perfect for his purposes. Red hesitates at the sight of the crowd, but his hand is reassuring at the small of her back. No one appears to notice them, or if they do, he’s enough of a deterrent to keep them away.

Her nose is, just barely, dusted with pale freckles from a day in the sun. They fall across her collarbone and distract him enough that he doesn’t hear the first thing she says. 

She rolls her eyes in mock exasperation and moves closer to repeat herself when an old friend of his stops by to say hello. He slaps palms with the other man, murmurs a snatch of information in her ear, (Rico. He does some small time smuggling, usually knock off handbags, stuff like that. Could have sworn he moved to Fairview a while ago.) 

She smiles warmly at Rico and laughs at the story he tells her about the time the two of them were caught carrying a hundred designer knock offs, all bright pink with feathers, and how, without missing a beat, they’d convinced the police that they were their personal bags and how dare anyone judge their taste. 

She looks up at him to confirm the story and he shrugs sheepishly, waving to a waitress that they need a round of beers. 

Rico, it turns out, is the first of many; it seems one person has barely left before someone else is coming over to say hello and swap gossip with him. Red picks up details; he hasn’t been around very much lately, (though they always say they completely understand, while looking at her,) and that he doesn’t bring women with him when he is around, (again, they glance at her,) and he’s generally well liked and well known, though no one seems to really know much about him beyond the antics and business they’d dealt. 

A few offer compliments on her music but leave it at that, though eventually she does end up in a rather involved conversation with an animated young woman whose bright pink hair falls like lightning down her back, debating the relative influences of the modern pop scene. 

She is delighted by the sharp wit the other woman possesses, how easily she marks trends, and for a moment, it’s like being back in her top level classes during seminar. He settles comfortably beside her, his arm around her shoulders, drinking cold beer and interjecting only once to point out that Red herself should be considered among the influences shaping modern music. He receives twin looks of exasperation, as if Red’s influence were a given and not worth discussing.

“Are you going to sing?” the pink haired girl asks them, waving at the tiny stage. Red leans back against him, resting her head against his shoulder as she narrows her eyes in consideration. 

“It doesn’t really seem fair,” she says, finally. “The last time I sang in public, I had a full set prepared and it still ended up a mob scene.”

He turns his head and nips the tip of her ear. “That was before you had the good sense to hire me,” he says and she can feel his smile against her temple. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got your back.”

She tilts her head, looking up at him through her lashes. As she rises from the table she pauses, tilts her bottle up, finishing it in one smooth motion before picking her way though the crowd to the stage. He doesn’t move but he does watch; more alert than he’s been all night, as she bends to talk to the DJ.

“Seems like you found a real sweet gig,” the pink haired girl comments to him.

“I got lucky,” he agrees. He doesn’t bother clarifying that this isn’t a gig, not really, not anymore. She doesn’t have to understand what they are. Red does, and that’s enough for him. He leaves some money on the table, enough to cover the tips for every waitress in the place, and moves through the crowd like a rumor, until he’s close enough to see her and close enough to see any threats to her.

The stage is tiny, the bar is crowded, dark. There’s no spotlight, but a flickering bulb creates a vaguely luminous fog around where Red stands at the microphone. She’s wearing his jacket over a brightly colored dress, the sleeves pushed back and her hair a wild tangle from spending the day on the water. No one notices her, except for him. Silence and stillness are part of her art as much as pitch and range, and she is unquestionably a master in all aspects of her craft.

The first note silences the bar utterly, searing the conversations and cauterizing the flow of noise. She sings a slow song, letting it settle hot and bluesy, filling the bar. Her voice is too clear to truly be suited to the blues, but there’s a simmering fury when she sings, a passion that clings to every word; she makes sorrow into a battle hymn. People have said a lot about Red, about her life, about her music, but they always agree on one thing.

His girl can _sing._


	6. Chapter 6

He’s not always by her side, though he’s starting to feature in rumors and the media’s speculated over the nature of their relationship a few times. She likes hiding out at his place, the simplicity of watching a game with him, practicing boxing, being able to wear whatever she wants without it causing scandal. He likes her oversized bed in her sun soaked bedroom, the smell of the rooftop gardens, watching as the music overtakes everything and consumes her completely. 

But he has connections to keep and business is business even when it’s pleasure, so there are times he trusts her to the primary team, (really, he is the entire primary team, but there’s a solid group he trusts to keep her safe for the short times he’s off taking care of other things.) She doesn’t ask and he never thinks to offer; a lifetime of secrets kept close developed into a habit of silence. There are those things they don’t share nor care to have part in; his underworld connections and her business meetings, neither has much opinion on the other. 

He lets himself into her apartment as night overtakes the dusk, absently swinging the helmet he’d had made for her while he was meeting with Cameron deSantz. (deSantz was crooked as they came, but he ran a top notch chop shop and the bright aqua and green helmet streams neon and vibrates with speed.) Red’s schedule is as familiar to him as his own routines, maybe more so, and without much thought, he heads straight for the large room she keeps as a work-space and studio. 

Red’s standing on a low pedestal and draped in liquid sunlight, a gilded goddess in the dying dusk. Maximilias Darzi is slightly off from her, his elbow cupped with one long fingered hand, the other resting lightly against his lips as he considers her with a focused attention. He’s never met Darzi before, but he spent most of a paycheck on his coat and never regretted it, even if it does bear the large inverted triangle that is the Darzi mark. The designer has an impressive sense of presence, but Darzi can't hold his attention; that is immediately drawn to the woman flitting around Red, practically cooing.

“You look just stunning, but don’t you think the color is a bit…” The woman tilts her head in an exaggerated gesture of contemplation. He catches a flash of her eyes and the look there is hungry, desperate, and possessive.

He sets down the helmet with a soft thunk and both women turn to look at him. There is relief in Red’s eyes and calculation in Sybil’s. Darzi doesn’t seem to notice him at all, moving back to Red so he can pin the gown in place near her hip.

“Oh!” Sybil says, brightly, approaching him with a manufactured smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m—“

“Sybil Reisz,” he finishes, shaking her hand carefully. He looks over to Red, lingering, just long enough to be sure of her feelings about the company. Then, using his grip on Sybil’s hand, he gently, but firmly, leads Sybil toward the door, leaving her the choice of following or being dragged. “You’ll have to excuse us. Red has an appointment she needs to get ready for.”

“Oh, but—“ Sybil begins, looking over her shoulder at Red, who has looked away, watching what Darzi is doing.

He hands Sybil off to Rodric, quite literally, and keeps himself between them and the door to Red’s studio. 

“Please make sure Ms. Reisz returns home safely,” he tells Rodric, and the flint in his tone makes it less a request and more a command. He doesn't move until both of them have left the flat and he hears the door lock.

He hits the button on his way back to the studio, letting the team know he is on duty again. “Friend of yours?” he asks as he approaches her, taking in the full sight of the gown. It slides under his hands when he reaches out to hold her hips, steading her as she bends slightly. The podium is just high enough to put her over him, but not by much.

“Watch the pins,” Darzi scolds, but he seems mostly unconcerned by the interruption.

“No, she’s not that,” Red says, kissing him hello. He rather likes the angle of the kiss and her newfound height.

Darzi tutts, but is not overly bothered. “She is a loathsome creature,” he states, stepping back to examine the gown again. “One of my best customers.”

“Did she come with you?” he asks Darzi and is rewarded with the other man’s full attention.

“Of course not,” Darzi says, then eyes him more closely. “That is one of mine,” he states, gesturing elaborately at his jacket. “Fall line, three years ago. There was only a limited run made.”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s a great jacket. Really got my money’s worth.” He offered his hand to Darzi, who shakes it with a long fingered, firm grip.

“Of course,” Darzi says, but his eyes are appraising, measuring him. “I have several samples for you to try, but I was without your exact measurements. From what I see, I would have had to construct something from scratch, in any case. We will finish with the gown, then get your measure.”

He looks at Red to see if she can translate this, and her smile is warm, amused. “He’s making you a tux,” she explains.

“Do I need a tux?” he asks.

“You cannot think you will escort one of my creations in… that,” Darzi says, waving at hand at him. “Of course you will need a tuxedo. It would be obscene for her to be dressed in this gown and escorted by…” he makes a sound, then gestures at Red, “You cannot think I would allow such a thing.”

It’s been a long day and it was a long night before that, but he looked up at Red, shining like sunlight and laughter in her eyes. He smiles slightly and holds his hands up in surrender, then settles down to watch as Darzi finishes he gown.


End file.
